In old times, portrait painting is just a monopoly for the minority such as sovereign, Senior clergy and politicians, etc. Only they have the right to require painter to make portrait painting for them. With the booming of Europe humanism ideological trend, new and rich class began to break the routine. To the 15th century, portrait painting gradually became a popular type of painting in western countries. In the 16th century, custom portrait painting has become a fixed mode, namely "formal portrait painting", and then began to vigorous development.

Everyone hopes to be able to keep the years of youth. The huge social demand led to the most prosperous time of "portrait painting" in the history of the 16th and 17th centuries. As long as the opportunity exists, any a great portrait painter could have the possibility to become honoured guest of the noble palace, so there were many excellent painters got jazz titles, such as leonardo Da Vinci who was skillful in fadeout, rafael who was good at matching colors, Michelangelo who was familiar with postures, and Uccello who was infatuated with perspective depth of field. All these are well-known portrait painting masters that had numerous orders.